He’s your teacher.
She downed the rest of the coffee and stepped out of the Snaky Barrel Pillows or whatever the owner called his place. The cold was bracing, but her coat kept it from being as painful as it would have been in her old rags, and the boots were doing their job as well. Boots and coat bought by your teacher. She shook her head and started walking aimlessly through the streets, frowning and fretting.
“He’s a monster.” The knot loosened not a whit.
He’s not. He might have been, but he chose not to be.
She turned a corner as a patrol crossed the intersection ahead of her, and hitched a ride on the back of a passing carriage. She was light enough and skilled enough that her boarding went unnoticed. The rhythmic clopping of the hooves helped as a focusing point to get her thoughts in order.
You don’t know he’s not a monster. He could be lying. The knot loosened a small bit. She took the train of thought further. Why’s he got a man trapped in a ball? He says the guy committed murder, but how do you know that’s true? What if he’s got him trapped so he can eat his soul or something?
The idea that Belamy was lying to her about important matters alleviated almost all of the guilt she’d been experiencing. Almost all. She still found the idea of forced service too gross to accept. The knot wasn’t gone completely. If he’s keeping someone trapped against his will, doesn’t he deserve it himself?
Maybe.
Skate left her perch on the back of the carriage and almost fell as she landed on the packed ice of the road. She caught her balance quickly and looked around, trying to find her bearings after paying no attention to where she’d been going. She thought she might still be in the Old Town, but there was nothing immediate or obvious to confirm or deny the idea. She started walking, knowing she would figure it out eventually.
She wasn’t in the slums; the buildings were too well-kept for that. The smell of the sea was distant and faint enough that she had to search for it, so she probably wasn’t in the docks. That left either the Old Town or the Baron’s Quarter. Lack of patrols probably meant the former.
She finally came across a familiar sight: the main avenue near Belamy’s house. She kept to the side of the street, barely noticing the passage of horses, buggies, wagons, carriages, and trolleys. Despite the ice, business carried on. Men and women in uniforms of gray and black, members of the City Keepers, had been doing their best to keep the streets clean. She passed one of the Keepers on the way to the old man’s house. They moved around the city, almost unseen, taking care of what needed care. Of course, they mostly restricted their activity to the Baron’s and the Old Town, working only at the edge of the docks and then through the busiest streets therein. They avoided the slums altogether.
The Keepers had been the current Baron’s father’s idea; Caribol had begun to grow by leaps and bounds toward the end of his life, and the streets were becoming filthier and filthier with the accumulated waste as thousands turned into tens of thousands in a few short years. So the old Baron had, with the help and blessings of the city’s new wealthy elite, devised a system to keep it clean: hire citizens to work directly for the betterment of the city itself. The Keepers had been the city’s custodians and functionaries for the last three decades, according to Boss Marshall. If a street was in dire need of cleaning, they did it. They lit the night lanterns, cleaned up spills, helped put out fires, and on and on. The only major duty they didn’t seem to have any part in was the policing done by the City Guard.
They had been busy throughout the morning; Belamy’s avenue was clear enough that wagons could pass each other with space to spare. Of course, the snow had to go somewhere, and the Keepers had piled it on the edges of the streets where pedestrians usually held sway; Skate had to stomp up and down surprisingly solid hills of the piled-up stuff to get to the front door. When she arrived, she entered without knocking or announcing herself.
Belamy was in his customary seat at his desk at the far end of the room, but he did not have any book open in front of him. Instead, he was alternating between staring into a ball of glass and staring into some spinning yellow thing, both of which were set in the middle of his desk. There did not seem to be anything interesting about the ball of glass, though it was set on a delicately made and ornate wire frame. The yellow device caught light as it seemed to spin in every direction at once, flashing first one way, then another. The old man did not acknowledge her entry, so Skate took a moment to take off her snow-covered coat and boots. With that done, she walked over to where he was seated, stopping on the way to toss another log into the low-burning fire.
The yellow thing continued to spin, and getting closer revealed that it was a golden light flashing every second or so, not just yellow. Recognition hit her suddenly: this was the delicate yellow hoop she’d tried to steal that first night in Belamy’s home. How Belamy was getting it to spin at such speed without touching it was a mystery. She assumed the answer was magic.
The old unliving wizard did not look up from whatever he was trying to do, even though there was no way he had not noticed her. Guessing that he did not want to be disturbed, Skate walked upstairs to the library. Rattle was there, flapping over an open book on one of the small tables. It looked at her and clicked once as a greeting, then returned to its perusal of the tome.
“Do you know what he’s doing down there?”
Rattle gave the motion that might have been a shrug in response, and did not turn from the book.
“Would he care if I talked to Petre?” she asked, pointing to the cloudy blue ball by the window. When she mentioned his name, she could see the smoke within the glass stir with more energy than before.
Rattle turned this time. It looked first at Skate, then at the blue ball. It shrugged again, but with a stiffness that had not been evident before.
“You’re concerned, though, aren’t you?”
Rattle waited, then clicked once.
“I’ll take responsibility for it. He hasn’t told me not to talk to him.”
It clicked once again and turned reluctantly to the book. Skate moved over to the window and gently picked up Petre’s globe. The blue fog parted almost immediately to reveal the quizzical, nervous eyes.
The eyes of a murderer, she reminded herself.
A murderer who can’t hurt you or anyone, she added to her own description.
“Good afternoon, Petre.”
“And to you as well, young Skate, the girl who would be a thief.” The appellation carried no accusation, but there was a playful mockery in his eyes as he spoke. “To what do I owe this wonderful pleasure, hm?”
“Do you know what Belamy is doing downstairs?”
“I don’t know anything other than what’s going on in this room. However, I’ve spent enough time around the old fellow to tell you what he’s probably up to if you describe what you saw.”
She told him about the glass ball and the spinning golden instrument, and he was nodding before she’d finished. “Oh, yes, I know what that is. He’s trying to spy on someone.”
“Spy on them? How?”
“Magic, of course. With the glass, he can see anyone he’s ever met or heard of or has a good description of or has any other tenuous connection to. If he’s got the amplifier going, he must be having a hard time of it.”